


The Big Question

by bcbdrums



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguity, Existentialism, Friendship, Gen, Post-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Religious Discussion, Tags Are Hard, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bcbdrums/pseuds/bcbdrums
Summary: It was a question so unlike any that had ever come from his flatmate before that John actually stopped in his preparations of tea and walked back into the sitting room.“What kind of question is that?”“One that I imagine most people contemplate at some point in their lives.”“Well yeah, but...why are you asking it?”The detective’s brows rose.  “I was asking you.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is actually not a new fic. I posted this on FF.net in 2014 and forgot to post it here too. I decided to go ahead since there is only marginal reader crossover between the two sites (of my fics, at least).
> 
> I actually quite like this. It occurs in the days immediately following The Empty Hearse. I love ambiguity so you'll have to look hard (hopefully not too hard) for the meaning in this one. Reviewers can tell me if it's too subtle or blatantly obvious. Enjoy!

 

* * *

 

“Do you believe in God?”

It was a question so unlike any that had ever come from his former flatmate before that John actually stopped in his preparations of tea and walked back into the sitting room.  Sherlock was sitting in his usual contemplative position, hands steepled beneath his chin and his eyes dancing over something only he could see.

“What kind of question is that?”

Sherlock’s gaze turned and he looked over the doctor as if he had just said something asinine.  His response however was unusually civil.

“One that I imagine most people contemplate at some point in their lives.”

“Well yeah, but...why are you asking it?” John said, crossing his arms and shifting to stand more comfortably.

The detective’s brows rose.  “I was asking _you_.”

“Okay.  Why are you asking me?”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed in impatience.  “Oh I don’t know, _maybe_ to discover what you think.”  He rose in a great swirl of mouse-colored dressing gown and swept past John into the kitchen to resume the tea preparations.

John turned and lowered his chin as he regarded his flatmate.  “Do you?”

Sherlock sighed, and John watched him clench his teeth to keep his irritation inside.  “As it would seem to be a choice requiring an element of faith rather than entirely facts, I have yet to form a definite conclusion.”

“Facts?  To prove or disprove the existence of God?”

“Yes.  Inexplicable manifestations, miraculous healings, the nature of the universe...” he waved a hand carelessly as he added two spoons of caster sugar to his tea with the other.

“The nature of the universe?”  John shifted his weight as he struggled to take the detective seriously.  After all this was the man who purposefully forgot the Copernican Theory.

“Not everything can be explained by science,” Sherlock responded simply as he returned to the sitting room, so quickly that John had to step out of his way to avoid being bowled over.

“How is the nature of the universe not explainable by science?” he asked as he returned to the kitchen.  Sherlock hadn’t been kind enough to prepare _his_ tea...

“Do you mean to tell me you believe _all_ of the theories you learnt in school?  Even Stephen Hawking talks about the origin of the universe in circular reasoning...”

John kept his eyes on his friend as he sat down across from him.  The detective’s brow was furrowed, he was shifting restlessly, and he was clearly holding in far too much energy.  Yes, it had been a few days since the aversion of the terrorist attack on Westminster and no great case had been presented in that time, but Sherlock had been kept busy enough.

He had sipped his tea and was about to open his mouth to speak when the detective continued, his own tea sitting untouched on the end table.

“And really, really _think_ , John!  Look at the complexities and differences in all the known life on this planet.  Do you really think _my_ brain is the result of millions of years of random chance?”

He made eye contact with John this time, and the doctor’s slack jaw was the only response he could manage at the moment.  His friend was entirely serious, and John had no idea how to respond.  He finally took another sip of tea and returned his cup to its saucer.

“I didn’t...realize you thought much about the rest of the planet outside of London.”

Sherlock raised a single brow and seeming to suddenly calm down, took up his own tea.  “Yes, well.  I’ve seen a lot more of it in the last two years.  It’s all the same really...”

“Is it?”

“Yes.  Every place has its criminals, its idiots,” he gave a nod and gesture to John with his cup that made the doctor stiffen, “its barely competent law enforcement, and its pathetic day to day existence.  Earn some quid, frivol it away...”

“You don’t find any of it beautiful?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes into a calculating stare which John had learnt not to flinch under years ago.  Apparently deciding the question was not meant snidely, the detective rose and stepped to the window, pulling the curtain aside to gaze down on the lamp-lit street.

“Not the places I’ve been, John.  Not the criminal underworld of every city from here to Chongqing.”

“Where?”

“Never mind.  Oh!” he groaned and flopped back into his chair, pulling his feet up and tapping his fingers on his knees.

John studied him for a long while, wondering what had the detective so sulky and petulant.  Aside from telling him how he’d faked his death and that he’d been pursuing Moriarty’s criminal network all across Europe and Asia, he’d given John no details of his time away.  And other than being perhaps more alert and aware of his surroundings, the detective seemed no different than he had two years prior.  It may be that during his exploits events had occurred to bring up such existential questions about God and the universe, but John knew better than to ask about it all to try and find out.  Sherlock would say what he wanted to say, and nothing more.

“Well,” John said, finishing his tea and setting the cup and saucer aside.  Sherlock’s eyes turned almost distractedly toward him.  “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

“What?”

“About God.  You sound like you’ve decided to believe in His existence, for...some reason.”

Sherlock looked confused and even more annoyed.  “I require more data but I am leaning that way, yes,” he responded as he stared John down.

“Then I don’t know why...you’re asking my opinion, if you’ve already—”

“I don’t need your opinion to know my own, I want to know what you _think!_ ” Sherlock replied, planting both feet on the ground and almost vaulting over the coffee table on his way to the sofa, where he lay on his back and again curled his legs up to his chest.

John blinked as he studied his ever unreadable friend.  “You want to know...what I think?  Just...to know?”  That would definitely be a first, if it were true.

The detective sighed.  “If you’re only going to try my patience then just go back to...wherever it is you live now,” he said, dismissing him with a wave.

John rose and peered at him from across the table, now genuinely curious.  “Why do you want to know?”

Sherlock only stared at the ceiling, but his eyes danced with activity that let John know he still had a chance.  He decided to give his friend some breathing space and took his empty cup to the sink to wash it, knowing Sherlock would never get to it and not wanting the work put on Mrs Hudson.

As he turned to go back for Sherlock’s cup he thought he saw his friend jerk his head away, as if he had been watching him.  Finding the cup almost entirely full he sighed and set his jaw, making a decision.  He stepped around the coffee table and sat at the far end, setting the tea within Sherlock’s reach.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked again, more firmly this time.

His friend’s eyes had stopped their frenetic dance and John recognized that he was sinking into one of the black moods that reigned whenever he was without work for too long.  But he was still alert enough—John was _sure_ he’d been watching him—that his nearly colorless eyes lolled towards the doctor and rested there for a moment before continuing on to the cup of tea.

He raised the cup and sipped from it without a word, and John waited.  Sherlock’s lips pursed slightly, letting John know his friend was trying to form a response that wouldn’t give away his actual motive.

He sighed.  “Sherlock...”

“The majority of world religions have one great commonality in that they require the commitment of the individual as opposed to the faith of the masses to ensure one’s admission into the afterlife, or reincarnation, or whatever reward to which their particular belief entitles them.”

John blinked.  “Okay...  I still...don’t—”

At that moment the door opened and Mrs Hudson bustled in, followed closely by Mary.

“Hoo-hoo!  Sherlock, you’ve another visitor this evening!”

John briefly met Mary’s smile as she stepped past the landlady, but his eyes returned rapidly to Sherlock’s, which darted away from his and firmly closed.

“We finished early tonight.  Sorry, am I interrupting something?” Mary asked, noting the position of the two men.

“Do take John home,” Sherlock said as he stretched his legs out and pushed his feet hard into the end of the sofa, “he’s being too slow tonight to be of any interest.”

“Sherlock,” John said insistently, but the detective’s eyes remained closed, his hands barely holding onto the cup and saucer that were now resting on his chest.

Mary watched them both for another moment in confusion before clearing her throat softly.  “Right, well...I’ve still got time to make dinner if we leave now,” she suggested uncertainly.

John met her look of question and shrugged in response, still having no answer to his own question.  Why after so many years of not caring about anyone or anything but the work Sherlock Holmes would ask him if he believes in God was as baffling a mystery as any they had encountered.  And now the detective had clammed up entirely in Mary’s presence, so he wouldn’t be getting an answer.  He clenched his left hand as a small spasm ran through it, and then pushed himself to his feet.

“Yeah, dinner...sounds good.  I’ll see you, Sherlock,” he said, and stepped over to the door and began putting on his coat.

The detective remained still, and John began to frown.  What had Sherlock been getting at?

“Good night, Sherlock,” Mary said kindly, but received no reply.

“Come on,” John said softly, taking his new fiancée's hand and descending the stair.

“What was that all about?” Mary asked as soon as they were out of the building, searching through her purse for her keys.

“I don’t know...” John said, his voice low, and he saw Mary look up at him with a hint of surprise.  He swallowed and tried not to look as bothered as he felt.

He knew Sherlock well enough to know when there was far more he wasn’t saying than he actually was, and whatever was on his mind seemed to matter to him.  It had mattered enough that he was still on the subject for almost ten minutes, even with John’s diversions.  But it was also apparently quite private, given his silence as soon as Mary showed up.

And John knew he would never know the answer, since Sherlock never revisited a subject once it was past.

“Ah, got them!” Mary said, holding the keys triumphantly.  She unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat, while John stood for another moment, clenching and unclenching his hand.  He looked up at the first floor window and saw the curtain fall closed and a dark shape move away.

“John?” Mary said, and he opened the door and sat down with a sigh.

The doctor was thankful for his fiancée’s grand gift of silence.  She knew when he needed to just think on his own, without the prodding of an outside ‘helping’ presence.  She also knew when he needed a sounding board to voice his thoughts and emotions against, and about fifteen minutes into their drive home that time came.

“So...your visit went well?” she asked.

John threw up his hands with a loud sigh.  “It _started_ well enough, but then he started asking me strange questions and it just...got strange.”

“Questions?”

“Well one question, really.  He asked me...Sherlock Holmes, of all people...asked me if I believe in God.”

Mary gave him a curious, sideways glance.  “What did you tell him?”

“I...” he sighed, “well, I didn’t.  I couldn’t believe he was asking me, so I...just...tried to find out why.”

“So you were the one asking the strange questions.”

“What?  No!  I...” he stopped as she started giggling.

“John,” she chided gently, “is it so hard to say you don’t know?”

“Well no, but...he wanted a definitive yes or no, I could tell.”

“Why did he want to know?”

“I don’t know!  That’s what I kept asking him, but he wouldn’t answer.  Just...changed the subject and somehow kept bringing the question round again.”

John’s voice was quickly rising in volume and intensity, so Mary waited a thoughtful minute before speaking again.

“It sounds like it’s important to him, whether you believe or not.”

“Yeah...”

“Did he say whether or not he believes?”

“He did.  He says he’s leaning toward _yes_.  Him!”

“You’re surprised…”

“Of course!  He’s one of the greatest scientific minds alive—” John paused on that.  Less than a week prior he would have said dead, and it was still unbelievable and unnerving.  He swallowed.  “And yet he says he’s leaning toward yes, God does exist.”

“Why does that bother you?”

“What?”

“It seems to bother you, that Sherlock could believe God exists.  Why is that wrong?”

“Mm...” John growled low in his throat and thought about that.  Why should it bother him?  Wasn’t religion supposed to be a comfort and something firm to set your mind upon?

The truth was John never had been religious, for no reason other than his parents hadn’t been, and he’d had limited exposure in his youth.  But there had been a time in his life when he had been sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God was the most real thing in the universe.  In the war-scorched sands of Afghanistan, in the cries of wounded soldiers, in the letters from loved ones, in the fight for freedom, and in his own blood pouring out of his shoulder, nothing had been truer than Someone greater and some place beyond the earthly life that for many soldiers was too brief.  And he even felt as he pleaded for his own life, that God _was_ listening and an answer was being given despite his fear and pain.  In those days he had been certain.

And then he had been invalided out of the army.  Without full command of his dominant hand, his career as a soldier and a surgeon was finished, and suddenly he had nothing.  Only the meals between sunrise and sunset, crap telly, and the tabloids making mountains out of which politician had been caught with their pants down and which designer Princess Kate was wearing this week.  And none of it mattered.  It had never mattered before, but after the army, it became so obvious how useless life was that it was almost physically painful to him.  Could this really be all there was to existence?  And if so, why would God create them at all?

It was in the pathetic little flat that his army pension hardly covered that his belief began to fade.  And he almost forgot about God entirely until that day...

“Oh...” he breathed, sitting up straight as Mary parked the car.

“What?” she said, turning to look at him.  But he stared straight ahead as memories he couldn’t forget played in front of his eyes—first the image of Sherlock falling and then of the pavement beneath his feet turning crimson as he reached his friend’s side.  Images he still couldn’t erase, of the pale wrist beneath which he could feel no pulse and the lifeless eyes that stared past him up at the sky.

He remembered pleading within himself, first with Sherlock not to be dead.  And then somehow those pleas had become directed toward God, begging Him for Sherlock’s life as he stared after his friend being pulled away on a gurney.  The pleading hadn’t stopped after Lestrade had come to take him home, expressing condolences, nor had it stopped after ridiculous therapy appointments about closure.  And it still hadn’t stopped after a difficult speech to a black stone in a church yard, or for two long years after that.

“Oh...” he said again, as another far more recent memory surfaced—one of pain and fire, of the feeling of being imprisoned within an oven with no way out.  And then the feeling of being lifted and pulled and the heat abating, of opening his eyes and seeing familiar pale ones peering down at him, and hearing his name called repeatedly in his friend’s stricken voice.  “Oh, I understand...”

“What is it?” Mary repeated, looking at him curiously.  John didn’t look at her, but smiled gently as he remembered his friend’s last words before their conversation had ended.

_”The majority of world religions have one great commonality in that they require the commitment of the individual as opposed to the faith of the masses to ensure one’s acceptance into the afterlife...”_

He’d been trying to be dodgy about it, but the real meaning behind the odd questioning was finally clear to John.  He chuckled as he pulled out his phone and wondered if Sherlock would have ever just said it plainly, but he supposed it wasn’t necessary.  After all, Sherlock had said himself that he wasn’t sure.

Opening a blank text he began to type ‘yes,’ but then deleted it.  Sherlock had done the unthinkable in being honest, so John needed to be as well.

“You texting him?”

“Just...answering his question.  That’s all he wanted...” John told her as he composed the message and hit send.

_I need more data but I’m leaning toward yes. –JW_

The reply came less than a minute later.

_Good. –SH_

 


End file.
